I m p ressio n s
You Can Be a Dental Hero
by Dr. Stephen T. Radack III, Editor
As I sit down to hammer out this editorial
I am still coming down off the adrenal
high of three days of volunteering at the
MOM-n-PA dental mission that was held in
Erie last weekend (June 16-17), as well as
the six months leading up to the mission.
As one of the community chairs for MOM-n-PA Erie, our job was
to try and recruit volunteers to come to Erie to help with this
event. We knew that from past MOM-n-PAs we would need up
to 1,000 volunteers to have a fully staffed dental clinic. Many of
you may recall my editorial in this publication back in January/
February making that appeal, “Would you come to Erie to help
our MOM?” There have been more appeals made since that
time and we never really knew if we could get the volunteers.
We knew we could “build” a MOM, but would they come? Well
the answer is a resounding YES! We had well over 700 dentists,
hygienists, assistants, office staff, dental students and lay
volunteers come from all over Pennsylvania, as well as Ohio and
New York. For that I want to again thank those who came and
did a fantastic job making our Erie MOM event a huge success.
There is something about volunteering and doing dentistry on
patients who are unable to afford it. Every day in our own
practices, we power through the day doing dentistry and making
sure the income exists to cover all the overhead costs and leave
some for us to take home. When you are volunteering at a
MOM or some other mission, you just do dentistry with none
of the constraints of overhead, collecting the fee or paying staff.
It is just doing what we love, without the handcuff of the
business of dentistry.
As I spoke to many folks who I had approached about volunteering,
one of the concerns I heard about doing clinical dentistry was
them not be able to have the same operatory, equipment and
dental supplies as they have back in their offices, or having an
assistant who was a volunteer. I certainly understood those
concerns and know the feeling from my experiences volunteering
at St. Paul’s Neighborhood Free Clinic here in Erie and at
MOM-n-PA in Allentown (my first MOM event).
To those folks and many others who might consider doing
volunteer dentistry, but for their own reasons would not feel
comfortable at a MOM type event, there is another way to make
a similar impact, and to do it from the comfort of your own
office. Donated Dental Services (DDS) is such a program offered
through the Dental Lifeline Network.
DDS is a national program, with more than 15,000 dentists
nationwide who have volunteered their time and provided care
for patients. Back in 2014 when I was president of PDA, Dr. Bernie
Dishler, a past PDA president and a DDS volunteer recruiter for
our state, reached out to me to see if I could help encourage
more of my Ninth District members to become DDS volunteer
dentists. There was a need for more volunteers in this area and
patients who needed treatment in the DDS program were on
a waiting list. Bernie is a hard guy to say no to, and at the time I
had never volunteered to be a DDS dentist myself. I figured
before I could use any perceived power of the PDA presidency
on my district colleagues, I better walk the walk myself; and I
signed up.
At the end of July 2014, DDS sent me a letter to let me know
they had a patient for me if I was willing. One of the great things
about this program is all the patients have been prescreened,
and in the initial letter that includes a patient profile you can
choose to see or decline a patient at that time. Even after you
see the patients for an initial visit in your OWN office, you can
still decide whether to treat them or not. The decision is entirely
yours. If you decide to accept the patient you will determine the
treatment plan for that patient. There is no fee for any necessary
lab work, as DDS has a network of dental labs who have also
agreed to participate at no cost.
My first DDS patient, Rebecca, came to the office for her initial
visit. She had lost all of her teeth in an automobile accident in
2011 at 46 years old and had been completely edentulous since
then. She was never able to have dentures made due to loss of
her dental benefits shortly after. The only hesitation I had about
accepting her as a patient was her being a full denture patient,
but after seeing the health of her remaining ridges, any
hesitation was gone and I was ready to grab the Dental Lifeline
and see what I could do to help this very deserving patient. Two
months later her final prosthesis were delivered and her life was
literally changed that day. A couple of weeks later I received a
letter from Rebecca thanking me and my entire team for “our
patience and kindness in giving me a smile and confidence to
be seen in public without feeling embarrassed to talk or smile
or laugh!”
JU LY/AU G U ST 2017 | P EN N SYLVAN IA DEN TAL JOURNAL
5